Exmouth U16s 5
Okehampton U16s 45
AFTER some good pressure from the Okehampton forwards and some stout defending by Exmouth, Okehampton were held up just short of the try line — that was until Joe Beer, who was up supporting the play, picked up the ball to touch it down for a try — his first for the team.
Not long after this Joe scored an almost identical try. Exmouth pushed forward and after an uncharacteristic handling error by Okehampton, their centre picked up the loose ball to score a try.
With Okehampton passing the ball out wide, Jordan Cornthwaite ran down the touch line before scoring under the posts.
With Liam Wilkins converting, Okehampton went into half time 17-5 up.
Soon after the restart, Luke Dennis received the ball in the centre of the pitch and set off running, outpacing the chasing opposition to score.
With Exmouth putting pressure on, Okehampton had a player sin-binned for obstruction, allowing Exmouth to exert more pressure and gain ground.
That was until well within the Okehampton half, Luke intercepted a pass and again left the Exmouth backs in his wake to score his second.
This seemed to inspire Okehampton who started to move the ball quickly and play more as a team. Josh Bush picked up the ball from a maul and set off evading numerous tackles reaching the five yard line but, knowing he was about to get stopped, slipped the ball out to Marcus Garratt, who was one of four Okehampton players up on his shoulder supporting, to score.
Marcus then collected the ball from a tap penalty to run through handing off a few Exmouth backs to score his second. Liam converted five out of seven attempts.
Despite the score line, Exmouth played well with good defence and great mauling.
Okehampton had some good play with hard solid tackling by Dean Folland and some good runs by Deane Andrew and Liam Wilkins.
l Pictured above is Alex Hillman passing the ball out from a scrum.